2.......Formal night.......ladies can get away with wearing any kind of dress. Jeans were worn on formal night with a coallred buttoned down shirt.

3......Life boat drill.......our keys did not work to get into our cabin. We sat in the lobby during the lifeboat drill. One lady approached us and said we had to go to the lifeboat drill. We explained that we couldn't get into our room to get our life vests or find out where we needed to go. She said that is ok, just go up one flight and stand up there. WHAT ? What's the point of that? We then said we have been on 10 cruises, we know the drill, she said ok and allowed us to stay there.

I completely agree with you on Myth 1. I have never had a problem finding a deck chair. It may not be right next to the pool but it's always in the sun.

On Myth 2: Yes, on Carnival you probably will be admitted wearing jeans and a decent shirt. I'm not in favor of it but it seems that in many instances the dress code is being relaxed. I haven't seen too many folks wearing jeans but I have seen them. On NCL, if you show up in jeans in one of the additional charge restaurants they will turn you away, even though it's "Freestyle". I've seen it with my own eyes, on two occasions, on the Norwegian Star.

Myth 3: Yep: People skip the drill: Hide in their cabin, etc. And on many cruise lines no attendance is taken and a make up muster drill is done. On some lines it is. However the young lady who told you that you could stay knowingly violated SOLAS regulations by allowing you to stay and she could have been reprimanded and Carnival could be fined. Chances of that happening 1:10,000. I never advise anyone of skipping a muster drill.

__________________Cruisemates Community Leader/Moderator

"There is a great difference between being well traveled and just having been to many places." ~Me

3......Life boat drill.......our keys did not work to get into our cabin. We sat in the lobby during the lifeboat drill. One lady approached us and said we had to go to the lifeboat drill. We explained that we couldn't get into our room to get our life vests or find out where we needed to go. She said that is ok, just go up one flight and stand up there. WHAT ? What's the point of that? We then said we have been on 10 cruises, we know the drill, she said ok and allowed us to stay there.

I worked on cruise ships and have probably done at least 100 life boat drills (if not 200). I have even been in the darn boats, gone down on the cables from the promenade deck, grabbed the oars and rowed. I have seen the British training films that have actors depicting proper life raft behaviour. They recommend everyone drinking water and attemtping to have a bowel movement within the first 24 hours (why they go into this detail, I do not know - nor do I know what is so important about having a BM right away) - anyway, they actually have one young male actor simulating excreting over the side of the life raft - mind you they only show his face - as he says "very sorry, ladies & gentlemen, but nature calls" in his oh so British accent.

Do you think I have days of traveling 24 hours and just getting to my room ready to relax when I hear the old six shorts and one long? Do you think I need to go to another passenger lifeboat drill?

But as an official CM staffer can I say I agree with you? of course not! I will tell you that I personally feel more than qualified to skip a drill once in awhile, but I always end up traveling with someone who is so morally driven that they insist I go to every drill no matter what. Therefore, I think YOU should go no matter what I do personally.

I can see why it is mandatory. If it was not most people would not go, and then there would be panic if anything bad ever did happen. But I do not really see why it is mandatory on ships but not on planes, unless the reality is that with a ship sinking you actually have a good chance of surviving, but on a plane - forget it.

Now THAT is where it is a joke, on planes. When was the last time you heard of a plane crash survivor getting rescued at sea while clutching onto his seat cushion that also serves as a life preserver ? Ever? I haven't.

What about the mandatory bowel movement when being evacuated from a plane.......

flight attendant - "you must evacute the plane!"

passenger - "terribly sorry, but I have some evacuation of my own to do"!

Seriously though, I have been on a few cruises and gajillions (austin powers) of flights, but still pay attention to the drills. I even still count the seat backs from my seat to the exit row when I sit down. I believe you may know exactly what to do, but in an emergency situation with panic and other people in panic and less than perfect conditions your drills and practise should kick in and help. And besides, it can't hurt.

Okay, this is going to be very interesting. My son has a HUGE fear of emergency situations, he totally FREAKS when they test the hurricane siren. I have no clue why, but he does.

Now, any clues on what I shall tell him, while we are all wearing life jackets, practicing how not to drown in case of a sinking ship?

He watched the biography of the titanic, and yes, he follows word for word on airplane safety, making sure I read along with him as he tightens up my seat belt and nags the other passengers to do the same.

I'm sorry, I am sitting here chuckling as I picture my ten year old in this situation, lovingly of course. I am not certain if I got off the subject in this thread, but some ideas would be helpful.

Oh my Texas,
My heart goes out to him!! When I was doing day care, one of the little girls freaked and shook uncontrolably when she heard the trash truck so I took her outside and showed it to her and let her watch the whole procedure for about 3 or 4 weeks and finally she got over it and wanted to watch it. Sometimes she just totally ignored the noise. I think once he sees everyone wearing their vests and standing in formation he might be okay. Maybe take the vests and go to the muster station early so he can see what and where it is early. Also, I'm sure he's not the first one to have this reaction so maybe talk to someone at the Purser's desk and see if they have a suggestion. Good luck and have a great cruise.

What Paul described is what the crew goes through in some of their training.

What you go through in the life boat drill is basically, people standing in their life jacket, or sitting in a public area having the correct procedure on how to put it on and listening to the CD or other person give the canned speech on where to report in the event you hear the six short and one long blasts of the ships horn. It isn't traumatic, no life boats are launched, you don't get in the boats, and overall it's a fairly light situation but you have to be quiet during the announcement and everyone should pay attention. Afterward: It's Party Time!!!!

Take care,
Mike

__________________Cruisemates Community Leader/Moderator

"There is a great difference between being well traveled and just having been to many places." ~Me

Now venice...........i agree with the last 2 must do's, but again i only stated what happened. We did not attend the lifeboat drill. Therefore it was not a MUST. Our keys did not work to get into our stateroom to get our life vests. We went to the information desk and they only said the system was down. Did not offer any other solution.

In all seriousness, i have a question........let's say you are on deck 9 Lido (Carnival Glory for this example), there is an emergency, do you go to Riveira deck to get your lifevest, or do you report to your muster station without lifevest? Does anyone know?

let's say you are on deck 9 Lido (Carnival Glory for this example), there is an emergency, do you go to Riveira deck to get your lifevest, or do you report to your muster station without lifevest?

Rules state you go to your cabin to get your lifevest, unless otherwise instructed. Most emergencies will give you several hours to get off the ship. Even Titanic, as structurally flawed as it was, took several hours to sink and everyone would have been saved if they had enough life boats.

Today's ships have TRUE watertight compartments so they would take a huge catastrophe to sink and it would happen very slowly.

Yes Paul, and not to mention the closest ship took hours to get there when the Titanic sank. In today's world, there would be so many ships and aircraft and coast guard and everything else there right away that you would have more than enough time to get your vest first, as procedure has it.

would be interested in some posters who actually had to evacuate a cruise ship at sea in respect to how they viewed the lifeboat drill

I am willing to bet you would have a VERY hard time finding anyone who has ever had to be evacuated in the open sea. I cannot think of the last time I heard of it happening.

Now, I do recall the Norwegian Sky being evacuated in the St Lawrence Seaway when it ran up a sandbar, and I was on the Holland America Westerdam when we rescued people from a small ship that was taking on water in Glacier Bay (was it Cruise West?... maybe I shouldn't speculate here). That small ship did not sink, but it had hit a small berg, had a tear, and was slowly getting lower & lower. It was about midnight when we loaded them all on "at sea" by lifeboat, but actually in the inside passage.

I will never forget the cruise director asked all the cruise staff to get in uniform and welcome them aboard, like they had just arrived by limosine. What a _____, Edwin Rojas, one of my least favorite cruise directors ever, universally disliked by cruise staff everywhere.

After we "welcomed them aboard" in our staff uniforms we put them up in the theater until the next day when we let them go in

On our last Princess cruise we missed the muster drill because my 3 year old niece just HAD to go to the bathroom right before the alarm was due to sound. We were up on Lido Deck and my sister ran her to the restroom thinking they would have enough time to get in and out before the alarms went off, but as luck would have it, my niece's "plumbing" was a little stopped up and it took way longer than expected. I waited outside the restroom with my other niece and nephew. I would have taken the kids and went on to the muster drill without them, but my sister is physically disabled and I didn't want to leave her to handle the stairs alone with the 3 year old.

I was surprised as I stood in plain view on Lido Deck that nobody approached me to ask why we weren't heading to the drill. Several crew members, and even one officer, passed by us and didn't seem to care. There was also one other family sitting at a table who clearly had no intentions of attending.

Once my sister and niece finished in the restroom, we hurried off to our cabin to get our life jackets. As I said, though, my sister is disabled so her "hurry" looks alot like other people's "leisurely stroll". By this time we were WAY late and everybody else was already at their assigned stations. What surprised me is that we passed a number of crew members, even some wearing the yellow "muster team" vests, on are attempt to find our cabin (we got lost along the way), but nobody questioned us as to why we were wandering around the ship instead of at the muster drill.

When we finally made it to the cabin, the cabin steward said "hello" to us very pleasantly, again not even questioning why we were there instead of at the drill which was still going on. We grabbed our life jackets and headed to the muster station, only to arrive just as everyone else was being dismissed.

I had always heard that muster drills were mandatory and that it would be difficult to hide, so I was surprised at just how easy it was to missed one (albeit unintentionally).

We were on the Radiance of the Seas and during muster...the captain would not release anyone from muster until ALL passengers could be accounted for. There were two young men who could not be found and EVERYONE waited until they could be accounted for. (I remember because they called their names over the loud speaker) This was on our cruise to Alaska.

On the Monarch of the Seas, same thing happened...everyone had to be accounted for. They had a list of names and cabins and checked them off for each section. On our cabin door...was a tag/lock which was removed after muster was completed.

Celebrity ran the same tight ship...

I personally find it helpful...although in a panic situation...who knows what a mad mass of people will do...but having an idea of where to go, what to do can't be bad!

It all appears to depend on the Safety Officer on the ship. On our first cruise we just showed up. We never even put on the life vests. On our second, we had to put on our vests, but weren't directed to any specific place to find a lifeboat.

Our third cruise was totally different! Not only did we meet in our "area", but we had our life jackets checked, and then were led out to the place where we would all go if there was an emergency. We had to wait until all of the passengers were in place. The ship sailed while we were still mustering .

As a person who is prone to panic attacks in crowds this was very uncomfortable for me. Thank goodness my DH was behind me and put his arms out and around me to keep me from being too crowded.

"TexasFyre" Okay, this is going to be very interesting. My son has a HUGE fear of emergency situations, he totally FREAKS when they test the hurricane siren. I have no clue why, but he does.

Now, any clues on what I shall tell him, while we are all wearing life jackets, practicing how not to drown in case of a sinking ship?

He watched the biography of the titanic, and yes, he follows word for word on airplane safety, making sure I read along with him as he tightens up my seat belt and nags the other passengers to do the same.

The lifeboat drill may be a great thing for your son. He is obviously aware that emergency situations happen and you probably don't even NEED to explain to him that the better prepared one is for an emergency, the more likely that they will be safe through it.

Preparing him for it before the cruise is a great idea, let him know it will be right after the ship sails and that there is a special noise to let him know of the drill/emergency. I am a bit of a control freak myself, and I know that being as well prepared as I can be for situations makes me feel much better when going into something new/unfamiliar.

let's say you are on deck 9 Lido (Carnival Glory for this example), there is an emergency, do you go to Riveira deck to get your lifevest, or do you report to your muster station without lifevest?

Rules state you go to your cabin to get your lifevest, unless otherwise instructed. Most emergencies will give you several hours to get off the ship. Even Titanic, as structurally flawed as it was, took several hours to sink and everyone would have been saved if they had enough life boats.

Today's ships have TRUE watertight compartments so they would take a huge catastrophe to sink and it would happen very slowly.

Well I know you posted this before that ferry ship sunk last month. 1000 people died on it I heard. 1300 had been on board so only 300 were saved so I guess we could have another Titanic. I am not going to stress about it though-I am sure the odds are much higher of dying in a car crash then a capsized ship or plane crash. Like poor Princ ess Diana, she flew somewhere every week-but she died in a car crash.

On the Dream, they wouldn't let us go until everyone was there and the women were standing in front! I think the Muster Drill is especially important and after the Star Princess, I plan on paying a lot more attention to the next one. On NCL, they say if you can't make it back to your room to get your lifejacket, to just go to your muster station because they are required to have extras.

i accompanied my 12 year old sister on her first flight ever (i was 22 at the time) and she was COMPLETELY freaked about flying! i tried to tell her what to expect and told her that the flight attendants would come around and show her what to do in an emergency. this didn't sit well with her at all. she actually freaked out so bad she had an asthma attack waiting to get on the plane. i got her on anyway and told her that she needed to pay attention so she could help others nearby who obviously weren't paying attention to the speech. it didn't help 100% but it did calm her down a little.

ironically, she refused to get on the plane to go home so my mom had to drive from chicago to atlanta to pick her up. she hasn't been on a plane since then.

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Life isn't measured by the number of breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.

i accompanied my 12 year old sister on her first flight ever (i was 22 at the time) and she was COMPLETELY freaked about flying! i tried to tell her what to expect and told her that the flight attendants would come around and show her what to do in an emergency. this didn't sit well with her at all. she actually freaked out so bad she had an asthma attack waiting to get on the plane. i got her on anyway and told her that she needed to pay attention so she could help others nearby who obviously weren't paying attention to the speech. it didn't help 100% but it did calm her down a little.

ironically, she refused to get on the plane to go home so my mom had to drive from chicago to atlanta to pick her up. she hasn't been on a plane since then.

Chosen - I'm glad that 12 year is not you as I can't imagine the long drive from Chicago to Miami to meet up with us for our cruise on April 30th. Are ya ready?